And then there were two

An advisory panel has narrowed the replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct down to two options, and surprise… neither is state House Speaker Frank Chopp’s mile long Suicide Park Mall.

One is an elevated-bypass hybrid that would run along the waterfront on two independent bridge structures side by side with two lanes in each direction. It would connect to the Battery Street tunnel on the north and a new intersection on the south near Qwest and Safeco fields. Alaskan Way would be placed under the elevated structures. The cost estimate is $2.3 billion. When construction costs, traffic mitigation and related projects are added, the cost would be $3.5 billion.

The other option is a surface/transit scenario, which would create a pair of north and southbound streets along the waterfront. Alaskan Way would become a one-way southbound street with three lanes and a bike lane. Western Avenue would become a one-way northbound street with three lanes and a bike lane. The cost is estimated at $2.2 billion. With construction and traffic mitigation and related projects, the cost would be $3.3 billion.

An “elevated-bypass hybrid,” huh. Back in the 1950’s, I think they called that a “viaduct.”

Why not the Big Dig Tunnel? Hmmm… Have them copy the design and methods from the Kennedy/Kerry supported spending methods. The project was originally budgeted to cost $2.8 billion.

From CBS News yelling loser boy… “The $15 billion Big Dig highway project, already the most expensive highway project in U.S. history, will cost Massachusetts another $7 billion in interest before it is paid off in 2038, according to an analysis of state financial documents.”

From ABC News “The Big Dig was subject to a union-only project labor agreement (PLA) that required project contractors and subcontractors agree to recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on the job, use the union hiring hall to obtain workers, pay union wages and benefits, and obey the union’s work rules, job classifications and arbitration procedures. The project was plagued by delays and problems throughout its history.”

PuddyCommentary – Remember the Union Label!

So to cover the cost overruns of the project using the union label, Massachusetts will pay close to $600 million yearly over the next several years. And where does that money come from? Maintenance and repair of roads and bridges across Massachusetts.

@10 I mean this in all seriousness. Why is it that these companies cannot run thru bankrupcy? Why is that off the table for them? Numerous air carriers have done it. People still flew them, and they came out the other side. I’ve heard the argument that no one will buy a car from a company that’s in bankrupcy… And I think to myself…”no one is buying them now…..” Anyway, interested to hear opinions as to why bankrupcy is off the table…

As to viaduct….sadly….what’s there now will be there 10-20 years from now…nothing that our government has done about it makes me think differently.

I hope the surface option gets built. The elevated option pretty much looms over the waterfront (much more so than the current viaduct). From the WDOT renderings it looked a lot like the area under the West Seattle bridge in the Delrige neighborhood. Great way to kill the central waterfront for good.

OTOH nothing might get done until the old viaduct collapses of its own accord.

“The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.

“Administration officials publicly blamed the abuses on low-level soldiers — the work ‘of a few bad apples.’ Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called that ‘both unconscionable and false.'”

(Quoted from Newsweek under fair use; emphasis added.)

Roger Rabbit Commentary: Few things about the torture scandal are as reprehensible as the fact the fucking liars who ran the Bush administration blamed the torture on the low-ranking soldiers they ordered to carry it out. Hard labor in a military stockade is too kind a punishment for the likes of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

I mean, we’re looking at the collapse of the American auto industry, for chrissakes.

The American auto industry collapsed a long time ago; trade barriers and corporate welfare have been the only thing keeping them alive. The entire drive train of my “Ford” was made by Mazda in Japan (I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise).

Don’t dis on bikes. The big bike companies like Trek have their stuff all built in SE Asia, but there’s a growing number of small bike companies in the U.S. that either are building or would like to build their frames in the U.S.

Same with the gear to kit out your bike. new “craft” makers are popping out of the wood work all the time and their products are generally better (and spandex free!) than the big corporate fuckers.

‘Oh and, I’m not arguing that bike builders could replace the big three. But maybe, a diverse group of small craft builders of all sorts of stuff could. Seattle’s Mountain Safety Research is a good example. MSR makes some of the best climbing gear on the planet and was started by a couple of Boeing engineers with a passion for climbing.

you’re funny roger. you call it a republican solution. let me give you a hint. the way the game is played is like good cop, bad cop. the republicans support wall street bailouts and the democrats pretend to be against them. but approve them anyway. why the collaboration? well lets see. what are the names of the people running the show? hank paulson, ben shalom bernake, tim geitner, alan greenspan, robert rubin, barney frank. if you’re not a member of the group, you’re a fucking fool for defending them because they’re sucking this country dry and sending the money overseas, and just like marc rich, when they’re ready they’ll take they’re dual citezenship and lay on the sand in the mediteranian.

you’re correct. i want more than one viable option for people (and freight) to get through the city. if there’s a natural disaster, or forbid something happens to the ship canal bridge, we need *Highway 99* to continue to function as such.

i’m hopeful that this elevated bypass will no longer be necessary when it’s as old as the current viaduct, but given the state of our current infrastructure, two N-S freeways are necessary. it’s foolhardy and shortsighted to act as if we have a monorail, light rail, and national high-speed rail system funded or in place.

Hold the phone here, folks….It’s proposed to tear down the Viaduct and turn Alaskan Way and Western Ave. into one-way streets, and that’s still going to cost over three billion dollars????? That’s got to be some awfully expensive lane-stripe paint!

Less then 30% voted “no, no”, while upwards of 45% voted for a rebuilt viaduct. Wheres the democracy?

How about we put both on the ballot, head to head, either or, no write ins, no none of the above, and no designed to be confusing ballot questions to string out the process for two more years? Surface Transit would go down in flames.

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